and trees filled with fruit.  Softened by this spectacle, he worships incessantly the rich and liberal hand of Providence, which is everywhere seen occupied with the welfare of the human race.  Going a little farther, he comes across a few mountains, which were quite hard to ascend; but having arrived at their summit, a hideous sight suddenly meets his eyes; his soul is all consternation.  He discovers a vast plain entirely devastated by the sword and fire; he looks at it and finds it covered with more than a hundred thousand corpses, deplorable remains of a bloody battle which had taken place a few days previous.  Eagles, vultures, ravens, and wolves were devouring the dead bodies with which the earth was covered.  This sight plunges our pilgrim into a sad reverie.  Heaven, by a special favor, had made him understand the language of beasts.  He heard a wolf, gorged with human flesh, exclaim in his excessive joy:  “O Allah! how great is Thy kindness for the children of wolves!  Thy foreseeing wisdom takes care to send infatuation upon these detestable men who are so dangerous to us.  Through an effect of Thy Providence which watches over Thy creatures, these, our destroyers, murder each other, and thus furnish us with sumptuous repasts.  O Allah!  How great is thy goodness to the children of wolves!”

XCIX.—­IT IS FOOLISH TO SEE IN THE UNIVERSE ONLY THE BENEFACTIONS OF HEAVEN, AND TO BELIEVE THAT THIS UNIVERSE WAS MADE BUT FOR MAN.

An exalted imagination sees in the universe but the benefactions of Heaven; a calm mind finds good and evil in it.  I exist, you will say; but is this existence always a benefit?  You will say, look at this sun, which shines for you; this earth, which is covered with fruits and verdure; these flowers, which bloom Tor our sight and smell; these trees, which bend beneath the weight of fruits; these pure streams, which flow but to quench your thirst; these seas, which embrace the universe to facilitate your commerce; these animals, which a foreseeing nature produces for your use!  Yes, I see all these things, and I enjoy them when I can.  But in some climates this beautiful sun is most always obscured from me; in others, its excessive heat torments me, produces storm, gives rise to dreadful diseases, dries up the fields; the meadows have no grass, the trees are fruitless, the harvests are scorched, the springs are dried up; I can scarcely exist, and I sigh under the cruelty of a nature which you find so benevolent.  If these seas bring me spices, riches, and useless things, do they not destroy a multitude of mortals who are dupes enough to go after them?